


Practical Applications

by Bibliotecaria_D



Series: Footnotes: Sand Box [3]
Category: Transformers Generation One
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2012-01-20
Updated: 2012-01-20
Packaged: 2017-10-29 20:19:13
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,171
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/323791
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bibliotecaria_D/pseuds/Bibliotecaria_D
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p><i>Come play in the sand box.</i>  (Swindle happens to the best of us.)</p>
            </blockquote>





	Practical Applications

**Title:** Practical Applications  
 **Warnings:** Swindle happens to the best of us.  
 **Rating:** PG for implication  
 **Continuity:** G1, _Footnotes_ AU  
 **Characters:** Thundercracker, Swindle  
 **Disclaimer:** The theatre doesn’t own the script or actors, nor does it make a profit from the play.  
 **Motivation (Prompt):** _"Always in history, it is the pioneers who suffer for ultimate victory."_

 

[* * * * *]

 

Swindle was looking for someone. Someone fast, but not _just_ fast. Someone fast and shaped right for the customer’s specifications. A flyer, but he was open as to who. Not just anyone, but Swindle would only know exactly who when he saw -- ah! Perfect.

“Thundercracker!”

Swindle’s smile was greasy enough to power McDonalds. The jet he turned it on froze in mid-step, half-in and half-out into the hall, perhaps out of fear of sliding around in the grease. Alarmed red optics glanced back over a wing into the empty room, then more desperately down the halls as if hoping someone would appear out of thin air save him. Well, this was a jet who flew with Skywarp. Sometimes help really did appear out of nowhere for him.

His alarm seemed to grow upon realizing that Skywarp was away on Cybertron. It was more emotion than normal from the thoughtful jet, which was what Swindle was counting on. Thundercracker had been shut up in the base for days. He’d fragged Starscream off but good, and the temperamental Air Commander had rearranged the schedule so he’d been pulling communication duty ever since. Days underwater? No sky? No flying?

Swindle knew a mark when he saw one.

“Yeah?” the jet ventured, wary as a human sticking a finger into a bear trap.

“Thundercracker, you’re just the mech I’m looking for!” Swindle oozed, piling on the shmooze to buy time as he ever-so-casually sauntered those vital few meters closer. Close enough to tackle and pin if the mark tried to run, basically. “Have I got a job for you!”

“No, you don’t,” Thundercracker corrected, not-so-stupidly edging back out of tackling range. “Go pick on someone dumb enough not to know better.”

“You’ll love it.” Two steps forward and an extra layer of grease piled on the deal with a corny wink. “Lots of flying.”

Justifiably skittish, the jet put his back to the wall and eyed the end of the corridor. “Still not that dumb.” The control room lay that way. Technically, it was safer ground because surely someone else was on duty and would help him pry Swindle off his leg if it came to that -- but it was also a dead end. Getting trapped in a small room by a conmech and buttered into submission was not all that uncommon, unfortunately. Starscream still periodically ranted about the Halloween candy stuck to the inside of his wheel wells. He smelled like candy corn, too.

So, control room: salvation or doom? Hmm.

Swindle beamed at him from the other direction, verbally coating everything in a film of grease. “It’ll be great! Good payback for very little effort. Whaddya say?”

Stupid Thundercracker, he actually tried to bargain. He knew it was a mistake as soon as he opened his mouth, but there was just something about Swindle’s sales-talk that made a mech start to think he could talk his way free1. “Look, Ramjet flies, too. He’s on patrol over Norway right now, but he’ll be back before the end of the shift -- “

“The Constructicons specified you.” Or Ramjet, but Swindle wasn’t going to mention that. Ramjet had been scheduled for long-range patrols every day in the week and a half since most of the Decepticons on Earth had taken the space bridge back to Cybertron to fight the invading, er, sand2. Starscream’s strict limitations on Thundercracker’s flight time made him a much easier mark than Ramjet would be. Flyers got grabby when it came to flight slots on this planet. Something about being trapped under all the water pressure of an ocean, Swindle supposed. “It’s a paying job, ‘Cracker. What’s not to like?”

“You calling me ‘Cracker’,” the jet said sharply, and Swindle made a mental note. Take the sky away for a few days, and Thundercracker was touchy as Breakdown in the spotlight. “I don’t need money.”

Swindle pasted on his sliest grin. “Who said anything about credits?” Blue wings twitched even as the jet took another cautious step away. Oh, that’d gotten his interest. The sly grin took on a hint of hush-hush, confidential information, and the wings twitched again, this time almost involuntarily toward the Combaticon. Thundercracker might act the aloof warrior, but he knew gossip when he saw it. _Gotcha. Heeere, Seeker Seeker Seeker. Fishing for victims is my favorite sport._ “Way I was told,” Swindle threw out, baiting the hook with a tasty tidbit of information, “there might just be a Constructicon orgy in store for whomever takes the job.”

And look at those optics pop wide. Thundercracker actually _sputtered_ , dignity slipping into a flabbergasted gape. “Wh-what?”

The little Jeep Decepticon waved a hand carelessly, taking the opportunity to shorten the distance between them under the cover of the gesture. “Oh, there’s some credits, but they’re being offered by the customer, and it’s really more of a token.” Which would be pocketed by Swindle as a finder’s fee, in any case, so Thundercracker wouldn’t see anything. “The Constructicons are far more interested in the results than the job itself. And when I say interested,” his smirk slid from sly into full-on implication, “I don’t mean intellectually. I mean **hands-on** interested. Their hands. All over. And they are **very** interested in the post-job examination.” As in, he’d actually thought that Hook was going to proposition him -- through the vid-screen, all the way from Cybertron -- if he’d just manage to find a suitable ‘bot for this customer. The Constructicons had gotten the customer’s message, drooled over the designs for a while, and fallen over themselves to contact Swindle.

His job was the best. “Really interested, Thundercracker,” Swindle purred. By now he was in the jet’s personal space, leaning in and speaking in a sultry tone he usually reserved for egotistical rulers of minor, oil-rich countries with lots of money to blow on large guns that nobody in their right mind actually needed. “Really…” he breathed, “ **really** …interested.”

Thundercracker swallowed audibly, trying to reset his vocalizer and failing. His optical lenses were blown wide in the dim light of the hall. Everyone knew repair mechs knew a mech’s frame in and out. Knew it and exploited it when it came to spite and getting even, but for those rare ‘bots who got an invitation into the berth, well…there were rumors.

Legends, truth be told, in the case of a few ‘bots3.

The Constructicons? Not quite legendary, but, hey, Swindle wasn’t just doing this for the commission fee. Some customers — and fantasties -- were worth the effort of a freebie.

It was worth a little effort to set up the deal. The results would certainly be sweet enough. Thundercracker was a fine enough mech to look at, standing there with his mind thoroughly occupied elsewhere, but picturing him writhing under six sets of skilled repairmechs’ hands? Mmm. Yeah, worth some effort on Swindle’s end.

 _Tug and set the hook._ He leaned back suddenly, shrugging his shoulders and showing his palms. “Think of it as having the entire repairbay owing you a favor or six, ‘Crack — ah, Thundercracker.”

The Seeker gulped again, throat crackling as systems rebooted. “What’s…the job?”

He twirled a finger, other hand nudging the Seeker’s arm to make sure he was paying attention. Thundercracker automatically stepped away. “You get to fly in circles,” Swindle said evasively, Definitely Not crowding the jet as he widened the twirl of his finger to include his whole hand. His hand gestured, indicating the size of the circles and incidentally brushing Thundercracker with his hand. So of course the jet turned aside and stepped back again. Oh, and look at that, they were standing beside each other! How convenient.

“Circles?”

“It’s been cleared with all the human governments, even,” the Combaticon said, slickly turning the circular motion of his hand into guiding the larger Decepticon back down the hall and, coincidentally, further away from the sanctuary of the control room. “The Constructicons want you to use some experimental boosters. They’ll be installed by someone here on Earth, and then you get to do some speed tests by flying in circles.” Really big circles, if he understood right. There had been details more technical than he was used to seeing outside of cannons the size of and weight of a gestalt, but circles. Planet-sized circles. Orbital routes. “Flight time. Won’t that be nice?”

“Nice…” Thundercracker shook his head, abruptly snapping back to full attention. “If it were that simple, you’d get Ramjet to do it. Who’s doing the installation?” He looked at the hand on his arm and pulled away. Swindle let go with a guileless _Who, me?_ gaze as the blue jet glared down at him. “The Constructicons are on Cybertron. What **exactly** is so experimental about these boosters?” His glare sharpened, mind focusing on the fine print Swindle had slimed over. “Wait, you said ‘the customer.’ Who’s the customer?”

“Oh, you know,” Swindle said vaguely.

Suspicion didn’t just creep into Thundercracker’s thoughts; it staged a parade and took over. “Who hired you to con me, Swindle?”

“Con? You? It’s a job, Thundercracker. Fair and square. Nothing Blast Off wouldn’t do if he were here!” The attempt at reassurance fell flat. Cue nervous laughter. These were the kind of details that killed a deal. “We do have a treaty on, you know,” the salesmech laughed, trying to brush it all off, but by now Thundercracker was backing him down the hall one slow, threatening step at a time.

Not quite how he’d planned on getting the jet to come with him, but it worked. Riiiiiiiight up until Thundercracker made a grab for him, but he didn’t seem that pissed. Yet, anyway.

“An Autobot.” Thundercracker’s voice flattened, deep and monotone. “An Autobot experiment.”

“…maybe.” Commit to nothing. Just keep sidling back and back, and my, couldn’t Thundercracker loom when he was angry.

“An **Autobot**.”

“The Constructicons looked over the preliminary designs,” he offered, then realized he hadn’t helped the situation any when the jet’s optics flared a furious crimson. “Yes, alright! An Autobot!”

“All the Autobot scientists are on Cybertron,” Thundercracker rumbled. Swindle chuckled, grin too wide and ingratiating to be real. “All of them except that fragged-up walking disaster with the light-up headfins. Tell me, Swindle,” and Swindle would be insulted by how his name was spat out except that he was more impressed by how the normally mild-tempered jet transformed into this viciously snarling ‘bot stalking down the hall after him, “did you just try to sell me out to **Wheeljack?** ”

“Well…” Almost there, almost there, just another meter or so. Swindle stopped as one of Thundercracker’s hands clenched into a fist. Best not to be a moving target at the moment. “What can I say? He made us a good offer.”

The other Combaticons didn’t even give that a chance to sink in before descending on the jet like a wave of profit.

Swindle watched Brawl and Onslaught subdue the Seeker with a smirk as Vortex got the statis cuffs ready. “Don’t worry, Thundercracker. Hook said Scrapper gives you an 85% chance at not exploding in mid-air.” Oddly, that bit of reassurance failed to stop Thundercracker’s struggles. At least the blue Seeker had enough dignity not to lower himself to yelling insults. Dealing with Thundercracker was such a pleasant change from Starscream. His audios were still ringing from Halloween.

Vortex moved in with the cuffs, but Swindle shifted around so that the glowering jet could still see him. “From the way Mixmaster was rhapsodizing in the background over the fuel mixture Wheeljack’s using, if you do explode, it’ll be epic.”

Onslaught snorted. “The humans will note this day in history.”

“We’ll find a way to memorialize your ashes,” Brawl grunted, and Swindle shot them an amused look.

“Now, now. I doubt it’ll come to that. The Constructicons are extremely interested in getting him back in one piece.” His smile widened, fast-food greased and used-car salesman satisfied. “Or at least in reassembling the pieces afterward.”

 

 

 

[* * * * *]  
 **Footnotes**  
[* * * * *]

 

1 Or gnaw a leg off to get out of the trap. It was like arguing with a guy selling tickets to Hell: a mech didn’t realize until he was actually in the handbasket that refusal probably would have been the better option.

2Yeah, Swindle found that weird, too. He’d been the one who’d had to explain an invasion of sand to his human contacts, after all. Most of the weird came from simplifying ‘techno-silicon parasitic nano-lifeform’ into ‘sand’ because of their limited intellects, but still -- _sand?_

3That Autobot medic with the red chevron could probably walk through a battlefield without more than a few potshots taken at him, just out of sheer hope. The war couldn’t last forever, after all.


End file.
